David Cameron loves to talk about cutting red tape or, as he calls it, “challenging” it. He’s been cutting red tape — or at least talking about it — since May 2010. That’s a lot of time to tackle a ribbon. If I were unkind, which of course I am not, I might suggest that he could start by cutting back on speeches about red tape.

He arrived at the Federation of Small Businesses conference in Westminster without scissors. Frankly, at this point, I’d like to see some actual cutting devices: pinking sheers, Stanley knife or even secateurs. I imagined David “Scissorhands”